Question

      Advice to “sleep on it” could be well founded, scientists say. After a good night’s sleep, a problem, which couldn’t be solved the night before, can often seem more manageable, although the evidence until now has been anecdotal (個(gè)人體驗(yàn)的). But researchers, at the University of Luebek in Germany, have designed an experiment that shows a good night’s sleep can improve insight (頓悟) and problem-solving.

       “If you have some newly-got memories in your brain, sleep acts on these memories and restructures (重新組織) them, and as a result, after sleep, the insight into problem which you could not solve before increases,” said Dr Jan Born, a neuroscientist (神經(jīng)科學(xué)家), at the university.

To test the theory, they taught volunteers two simple rules to help them turn a string of (一連串) numbers into a new order. There was also a third, hidden rule, which could help them increase their speed in solving the problem. The researchers divided the volunteers into two groups: Half were allowed to sleep after the training, while the rest were forced to stay awake. Dr Jan Born and his team noticed that the group that had slept after the training were twice as likely to figure out (想出) the third rule as the other group.

“Sleep helped,” Born said in a telephone interview. “The important thing is that you have to have a memory representation (描繪，表現(xiàn)) of the problem you want to solve in your brain and then you sleep, so it can act on the problem.” But Born admitted that he and his team don’t know how restructuring of memories occurs or what governs it.

Pierre Maquet and Perrine Ruby of the University of Liege in Belgium said the experimental evidence supports the anecdotal suggestions that sleep can help develop creative thinking. Although the role of sleep in human creativity will still be a mystery, the research gives people good reason to fully respect their periods of sleep, they added.

57. The underlined phrase “sleep on it” in Paragraph 1 probably means ______.

A. to delay deciding something until the next day   

B. to get as much sleep as possible

   C. to go on sleeping without being disturbed       

D. to sleep till after the time you usually get up in the morning

58. Jan Born and his team carried out the experiment through ______.

   A. comparison       B. interview              C. survey       D. imagination

59. It can be inferred from the passage that ______.

A. people should sleep so long as they have time   

B. sleep is the only way to solve hard problems

   C. people have various periods of sleep     

D. people know how sleep reconstructs memories

60. What would be the best title for the passage?

   A. How Sleep Works                    B. Sleep Helps Solve Problems   

   C. No Evidence, But Well Founded         D. Born’s Discovery On Sleep

Answer 1

【小題1】A

【小題2】A

【小題3】C

【小題4】B